Sex robot manufacturers in China are apparently getting ready to jam custom artificial intelligence models into their wares.
As the South China Morning Post reports, a Shenzen-based company called Starpery, which is one of the country’s largest sex doll makers, is in the process of training its own large language model, or LLM, to take its fairly lifelike sexbots to the next level.
Though it won’t be the first so-called AI sex robot to come out of China, Starpery CEO Evan Lee suggested that the new models slated to hit shelves this August are going to be a game changer.
“The new generation of sex dolls, powered by AI models and equipped with sensors, can react with both movements and speech,” boasted Lee, “significantly enhancing user experience by focusing on emotional connection rather than just basic conversational abilities.”
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As with all other AI-training endeavors, Lee suggested in his comments to the SCMP that the biggest hurdle in making talking AI sex robots is related to how robotic they currently sound.
“Technological challenges remain, particularly in achieving realistic human interaction,” the CEO said. “While simple dialogue is easy, creating interactive responses involves complex model development by specialized software companies.”
Though Starpery has traditionally focused on selling dolls outside of China, the company is reportedly looking to expand in the domestic market. There has also been ample competition in the AI-powered sexbots field this year, and there’s little doubt that as one of the biggest players in the industry, Starpery is looking to capitalize on that trend.
Notably, the firm has not elaborated on what exactly it’s training the sexbot LLM on — though given the naughty usages of other chatbots we’ve seen thus far, we have an idea of the kinds of things these dolls might say once that training is complete.